Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath has con­demned the shoot­ing of a sec­ondary school stu­dent in Mal­oney as “deeply trou­bling and whol­ly un­ac­cept­able”, as the 15-year-old re­mains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

The Form Five pupil of Ari­ma North Sec­ondary School, iden­ti­fied as Zwade Al­leyne, was shot in the head on Sat­ur­day night while so­cial­is­ing with friends out­side Build­ing 12 in East Mal­oney Gar­dens. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, sev­er­al armed men opened fire around 10:45pm, strik­ing the teenag­er as he at­tempt­ed to flee. The sus­pects fled the scene on foot.

Res­i­dents rushed Al­leyne to the Ari­ma Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. He was lat­er trans­ferred to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex and placed on life sup­port.

“This act of vi­o­lence against one of our na­tion’s youth is deeply trou­bling and whol­ly un­ac­cept­able,” Dowlath said in a me­dia re­lease is­sued on Mon­day. “Our prayers are with Zwade and his fam­i­ly dur­ing this ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult time.”

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion con­firmed that Al­leyne is cur­rent­ly sit­ting Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) ex­ams. In light of the in­ci­dent, of­fi­cials will fa­cil­i­tate his re-reg­is­tra­tion for the May/June 2026 ex­am­i­na­tion pe­ri­od at no cost to the fam­i­ly. Dowlath al­so as­sured that psy­choso­cial sup­port would be ex­tend­ed to his peers and school staff.